Getting the best price.  The art of haggling.  Not being taken for a rich fool.  Not being ripped off.  Look after the pennies and the £’s will look after themselves.

Last night we bought a small tray of figs.

The stall holder weighed them and gave the price of 10 lira (YTL).  My “being ripped-off” antennae immediately bristled.  The scales (in the couple of seconds they were in use) indicated a weight not equalling the nice neat number of “10”.  Conversations over the years about “tourist price” and “Turkish price” adding to the bristling.  I don’t think I am alone in not liking the feeling of having been ripped off.  But we paid and said nothing.

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Prior to the fig purchase we had enjoyed a lovely meal in the Fish Market.

The prawns were the same price for everybody (although a luxury “ticket price” for our Turkish friends), the sea bream was a bargain, the drinks were restaurant price – and we added some indulgent meze just because we wanted to – and then extra bread to mop up the lovely juices.  The whole meal, including fish, came to 197 lira.

After that we made our way home on the water-taxi as another treat.  It cost us 15 lira (instead of 5 lira on the dolmus (bus)).

And then we stopped for a drink on the way – we are on holiday after all.

The whole evening cost us £51.50 (in Turkish lira) – something similar “back home” would have cost 4-5 times as much.

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Earlier in the day we had been invited to breakfast by our Turkish neighbours upstairs.  It is customary to take a gift, so I had popped out to the local bakery and bought a couple of freshly baked loaves – special bread – to take upstairs.  it cost us 5 lira – embarrassingly little.  If I had done that “back home” it would have been a derisory gift – a gift that was not a gift at all.  A gift of offence.

Here it was the right gift, a welcomed gift, a gift of friendship.  Both loaves were added to a groaning table of delicacies bought and prepared (with not a little sweat) for us all to enjoy.  A breakfast of celebration way beyond a normal breakfast for us all.

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I have found God Soft Hands Jesus always offers the right gift – a gift of friendship.  A gift irrelevant of “price tag”.

We have received gifts of both pennies and pounds – some of so many pounds I have fought to say no – too much!   And often so few pennies I have dismissed “the gift” as an insult.

But I find that GSHJ does not see price-tags as I do.  He has no “price-tag”.  He is no price-tag.  For love has no price – not of comparison – not of exchange rates – not of haggling and barter.

Love only has a price when I want a bargain.  When I want back more than I (price) my giving compared to receiving.  When I make love just another transaction.

And that is not love at all.

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